


Any Other Tongue

by Missy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Coded Language, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Marriage, Memories, Phone Calls & Telephones, Romance, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Undercover, shared memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: While Ray's undercover as Greg in Coral Gables, he and Kevin figure out a way to communicate with each other.  It involves  burner phones, a lot of luck and a lot of carefully phrased affection.





	Any Other Tongue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinlizzy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/gifts).



> Includes spoilers for the season 4 premier!

The phone rang just once before Kevin picked up. “Hello…Greg.”

“Hello, tall man,” Ray said. Leaning against his kitchen cabinets as the hot, hazy Florida morning sun poured heat across his linoleum floor, he thought idly if he had time to wash the floor before heading out on further recon. He and Kevin weren’t supposed to communicate, and if Jake knew that he’d broken the rules in order to speak with his husband he’d be livid. But there had been a way – an untraceable phone he’d purchased, with pay-as-you-go minute plans. They’d texted until they had gained the courage to physically speak to each other, to take the leap and break protocol. 

That Holt was willing to do something like that spoke quite loudly to how lonely they both were underneath it all. Indeed, this sort of danger was different to them, a rarity that left them both feeling uneasy.

There was a note of relief in Kevin’s voice as he continued, “times are acceptably agreeable at the moment,” he continued. “Small cheese has learned a new trick, and the people of the blue are agreeable and understand your needs.”

“Excellent. Then all is proceeding to plan…perhaps too well.”

“Please don’t second guess your luck, Greg. You know that that might bite you in the end.”

“My end is well cared for. Don’t worry for me or it.”

The complicated code they’d worked out to communicate with each other hadn’t phased Kevin yet, though Ray - consummate professional though he was - often struggled not to stumble. The phone's wireless signal might have been tapped, of course. 

“But have you had word about your return?” There was a small note of nervousness to his tone, the slightest hint of worry and the smallest niggling bit of doubt, as if he were trying to keep an even keel.

“I’m afraid not. We’ll be forced to see how the…shopping trip…goes,” he said. “If it produces results then home base will be gifted with my presence in a fortnight.”

“Oh,” Kevin murmured, and he could feel the tension sink out of his body. “Oh, that’s wonderful news! I’ll begin preparing for your return. The strings will be playing a concert at the beginning of the month, and I yearn for your presence.”

“Wonderful. I shall be ready. In fact, I am…elated to be with you. It’s been months since your return from France.” Even then, Holt had lived in worry for his husband. The distance had not been kind to either of them, and they had been apt to fight over ridiculous things. They were unified by their likes but those likes did have tendency to make each of them quite sensitive.

And so they’d come perilously close to separation. He’d almost lost his love, and Ray knew without a doubt now that losing Kevin would be an unthinkable occurrence. 

“I adore you. And I quite miss the sight of you in my bed.”

“Greg,” Kevin said, “I’ve been thinking of Italy. Do you remember Italy?”

Italy wasn’t in the code they’d created. In fact, it was an actual memory, of a vacation they took together to see an opera at the Teatro Regio Ray could taste the Campari and smell flowers growing up, steamy and alive, in the well saturated dirt. Everything had felt rich and worth exploring then. Everything had felt new that day. Everything had felt different. “Of course.”

“I’ve been holding on to Italy. All month, I’ve kept the memory of your face doused in sunlight in the back of my mind. It was such a good time, Greg.”

“We’ll ride those gondolas again,” said Holt.

“I expect you to. In fact, I expect you to be aware that I'll be buried in a vineyard. That was the plan, wasn’t it? Near the symphony hall.”

Kevin wasn’t speaking of death at all. He was speaking of where he’d hidden a four page letter to his husband – delivered and buried beneath a passel of rose bushes in city hall in New York during their courtship, when Kevin had been busy shepherding his students through a rough finals season and Ray had been busy untangling himself from his last relationship. Never let it be said they weren’t clever. Ray admired his husband – admired him for his ingenuity of course, and felt sorry for him at this very second, but that didn’t kill off an ounce of his admiring love. Kevin was a cop husband. He knew exactly how to hold the fort down, how to keep himself calm and how to make sure that everything was running smoothly at a baseline level. He was brilliant, honest and wonderful. Dependable. Ray’s favorite human being on the planet, were he to be honest. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have weaknesses. "I recall," Ray said. "You lie resting in the hall closet."

Kevin laughed. “…That was terribly morbid. Please, tell me more about your neighbors.”

And so Ray talked about the women he power walked with, the men to whom he sold ATVs to while living this separate undercover life. “I’ve missed you more than I’ve enjoyed anything about this town,” said Ray; though he'd tried to encourage Jake by maintaining a happy, calm outer appearance to keep him from jeopardizing everything, that surface remained a lie. 

Ray could already imagine a future where he wouldn’t have to miss his husband, where their house and dog and their garden club would once again reign supreme. Where there would be symphonies every other weekend, and when he kissed Kevin his husband would be smiling, his arms would feel warm and welcoming. He had the warmth of Florida’s sunshine on his back, and a palm tree waving for him, and the possibility of his career's true redemption. But he wanted his husband, the companionship of him, the sight of their dog lingering around his feet, sniffing and barking at a breeze stirring the branches. He wanted that part of his life, the truest heart of it, back. He adored his husband, and the distance had only confirmed it for him.

“Thank you. I have to go, Darling. Dead Dane reading at the OK Corral.” 

Ray smiled. “Keep the children hopping, would you?”

“Of course. Be careful, darling. Stay warm. Stay Dry.”

“And you.” The silence after those words were a taunt, a nervous flutter of noise that aggravated Ray into decision. As lovely, settled and useful as his life in Coral Gables was, Kevin and Cheddar needed him, waited for him, when the assignment was done. Ray would simply have to hold on and keep his nose clean until then. 


End file.
